Another mouse....this time alive

I was feeding the dogs dinner the other night, and happened to glance in the garage waste basket. This little guy (gal?) was in it, trying to get out. I was surprised at how high it could jump, but it wasn't enough to make it up & out. I put the waste basket up on the workbench, out of the dogs reach, and when they were done with dinner, I took it to the beach to liberate it. Well, not on the beach, but some shrubs by the beach. I'm guessing it's the one and only time it will ever ride in a car.

It was a tiny mouse. To give you some perspective, that roundish thing in the lower right hand corner is a piece of dog food I gave it for a snack while it was waiting.

So I liberated this one, but I'm guessing there are more in the garage. I need to set up some traps, or maybe I'll try one of the versions of the "live" trap I found on the web. I'll report back....

A little bit lighter, a little bit later

Low tide beach walk last night. This was just about 5:20, I think, and the sun was just going down. I would say there was "use-able" light until about 5:45. A couple more weeks and it will be light until 6:00, which means surfing after work is back on the books :) I would have gone yesterday - it was beautiful and glassy, but the tide was too low. The only guys catching waves were doing it in three feet of water. I guess it's better than not surfing, but not my cup of tea.

Supposed to be nice this weekend so hoping to surf both days, that would make me happy!

Yes, I'm still here....

I’ve been slacking off here, I know. It has been an extremely busy week (rotating 7 day window – I know it’s just Monday!), so no posts lately, sorry. We came down with the infamous Downadup.B computer worm at work at it required overtime (working on Sunday?!) for everybody. I don’t normally do hardware support, but we needed all hands on deck to help out, so I tried my best to do my part.

Summer is over. Well, at least for a few days. We started getting rain last week, maybe Thursday, but the storm was from Baja so it was really warm. Sunday it cooled down, but it’s supposed to be in the 70’s by Friday again, which is nice. We are so far behind on rain it’s not even funny. Maybe February & March will bring it on….

That’s it for now, I’ll try and come up with something interesting this week, really!

Winter

The cold weather continues :-) Sunday afternoon on the beach with some beers. Feeling very fortunate!

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Ahhh, winter

We went wine tasting today and ended up here, at Stillwaters for wine and a picnic. What can I say? Its January and its 70 out. We toasted everybody on the east coast shovelling out of the snow ...

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More signs of Spring - or the lack of winter

I don't know when these normally bloom, but on my travels around campus yesterday, I came across this Magnolia (or similar) blooming. Granted, it was 74 outside so it certainly seemed like Spring. I can't help but wonder how many plants are going to be out of sync this year because of the weather?

Speaking of the weather: it's staying in the 70's until late next week when I guess we have a 20 percent chance of rain. We need it, but those aren't great odds!

Glad it's Friday, going to do some wine tasting and have a picnic tomorrow :)

Summer?

Crazy. It was supposed to be 84 in SLO today. It's been warm in Cayucos too - in the 70's. We had to sleep with all the windows open last night. This is a pictured captured from the Cayucos web cam. I like to look at it during the day to torture myself. If you've never seen it, you can check it out here. It updates throughout the day and is a nice way to spend some time at the beach :)

Rose Bowl

We went to the Rose Bowl swapmeet on Sunday, which is a once monthly mostly antique event. It was pretty overwhelming. The number of vendors and area to be covered was huge. It was fun, but after a couple of hours, I think my eyes just starting glazing over and I stopped seeing things. Still, it was neat to be at the Rose Bowl, as I had never been there. It was a toasty day: 80+ outside, but the air was clear and the visibility was great.

The vendors are setup around the outside of the bowl, and as you can see from one of the pictures, they have one entrance to the bowl open so you can go inside and look around. We only bought one thing while we were there: a package of dishwasher tablets for $5. I know, I know, hardly an antique. But, we needed them and our Costco didn't have the brand we use last time I was there. I talked the guy down from $8 to $5. They go on coupon for about $10 a package so I thought we got a good deal :) Too practical, huh...

The LACMA

We saw the "Hearst Collection" and Vanity Fair photo exhibits yesterday here at the LACMA. Very good. We started through the exhibit on the Arts and Crafts, but ran out of time. Today, its off to the Rose Bowl swap meet!

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A week ago...

...There was a parade here. Colorado Blvd a week after the Rose Parade. Some of the bleachers and the judging area are still up buy otherwise, you would never know.

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Ramen again :-)

This time at Santouka in LA. Salt ramen on the left and kimchee ramen on the right. It was delicious.

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Magic Tree

Isn't this cool? This was a "magic tree" or something like that from Mom's Christmas stocking. You just put it together, put the solution in the plastic tray, and it grows all these great crystals. This went from photo one - the blank tree - to photo three - full grown tree - in about 5 hours.

Thanks to Google, here's how to make your own tree if you want!

Post Christmas waves

This picture is actually from December 27th, I think, but I love it. Surfing at the pier in winter. This is a small day - I think the waves were mainly waist high with the occasional chest high set from time to time.

There would normally be more surfers closer to where we are standing, but there was a contest going on, so most of the surfers are farther down the wave. It was a beautiful clear sunny day, but the wind was freezing. I think we stood on the pier and watched surfers for about 20 minutes, before we had to go thaw out :)

Happy New Year!

I fell asleep in the recliner about 11:45, and had to be woken up 15 seconds before midnight. A wild night in Cayucos for sure ;-) It's another new year already, no resolutions or plans, really. Probably going to try and spend less - like everybody in the country, and hope the stock market starts to recover.

I'm finally posting a picture from a hike (OK, walk) last week. A new section of Montana de Oro has opened up called "Buchon Point." It's actually land that PG&E owns but is letting people access. We did one short trail to the beach where there are some "caves" that are very cool. I'd like to back at low tide sometime as it looks like there would be good tide pools here as well.